The Green Belt Relay

In 2015 a SEAC team came third overall and first in the mixed teams category. Here are some pictures of the event.

The Green Belt Relay is a 220 mile race for teams of 11 runners that took place over the weekend of 16/17 May 2015. The event is described in huge amounts of detail at the race’s website – http://www.greenbeltrelay.org.uk/.

Each team member MUST run 2 legs – one on Saturday and one on Sunday. The legs are of varying lengths and difficulties. As you could be running legs on opposite sides of London (unless you are lucky enough to do Legs 11 and 12) it requires a fair amount of commitment over the weekend – the race is as much a logistical exercise as sporting challenge! The legs are individual races throughout the day. The logistical challenge is to deliver and pick up runners to/from the start/finish respectively throughout the day. The normal arrangement is for a core group to drive around the race delivering and picking up runners. You can either drive around with the team for the day (or part of the day) or we can try to pick up/deliver runners from/to nearby stations. Whatever, a plan is normally made, and by a miracle it normally works. Its most fun to join the carnage by chasing the race around for the day around the green belt and cheering runners off at the start and back into the finish.

Although it is a very friendly and low key event, SEAC has a pretty good record in the GBR: winning in 2007, finishing 2nd in 2012 and 2005, 3rd in 2011, 2006 and 2015, 4th in 2010 and 2014.

We still hold the Mixed team course record which was set in 2011. We have also successively won the ‘King of the Mountains’ race for the legs 4/5/16/19. So there is a certain element of competitiveness!

There is a B&B overnight stop (and night out) for those intrepid enough in the bright white lights of Brentwood for those interested on the Saturday night.

Over 80% of the course is off-road and a certain amount of map reading is needed as the course is not always well marked. Detailed in the table below are the legs for the 2013 race (exact distance and start time may vary slightly). Toughness of each Stage is rated 1 easy – 10 hard, it takes into account all factors such as distance and hilliness etc – Legs 4, 5 & 16 are very tough runs. (See http://www.greenbeltrelay.org.uk/stage.htm for more details including maps)